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Didn’t mondraker go down this road years ago only to become more moderate? And if you look at race results of the most recent people using the super short stem theory - cough *gamux, you’ll see it’s not exactly the most successful thing in the pits.
Seems a strange design ethos.. to position myself further backwards to correct my weight bias that’s happened due to an extremely long chainstay I have designed; I then needed to utilise a novel stem to shorten everything up and position myself centrally!
Or am I reading it incorrectly?
Regarding the new Lowers for the ZEB, Rockshox seem to have ditched the bleeding ports.
If you want to use absolute terms, then yes, you are reading it wrong, because short chainstays were bad design decision for all the wrong reasons, just like long stems to compensate for minimal rider space on old school reach on outdated frames was a bandaid. Super short stems are nicer and natural to steer, but on bikes with short chainstays take away too much weight from the front wheel. You can compensate for that with A) longer chainstays (hard to do)
B ) firmer spring/compression damping on the rear (very easy to do)
...why link this? we all know those folks are super critical, this post is just labeling them as haters and to give the company selling you a $2k fork a break.
the air bleed buttons? IIRC fox has a patent on that.
I also remember Gee Atherton using an ultra short stem years ago, only to crash a lot and go back to normal stems short after.
Brian Cahal's vid of him using the raised reversed stem also featured him washing out the front and eating dirt.
You know it's something riders won't mess with when even the guy known for having a ridiculously high stack (Dak) runs a stem that roughly matches his offset.
To me it seems like there's absolutely nothing to be gained from really short stems.
What does running a stem that 'matches the fork offset' have anything to do with anything? This is one of the most WTF claims I have heard regarding bikes and bike fits.
Where in relation to this offset is the tyre to ground contact patch? How does the handlebar to patch relation change relative to wheel size? Fork axle to crown? Dynamic sag? Travel position? Head angle?!
Most importantly, what does the position you attach your handlebars to have anything to do with riding dynamics when you can have multiples of 10 mm difference in handlebar setback (effective reach or whatever you want to call it) depending on handlebar geometry.
To get into a similar position running a 55 mm rise handlebar that I had only in 12/8° sweep resulted in me having to run a 70 mm stem to be in roughly the same position fore-aft as I was with a more normal 8/5° sweep handlebar on a 40 mm stem. Because the bars are made by having the backsweep swept BACK, they do not come forward and then back to have the same relative clamping to hand position.
Commenting on stem lengths should REALLY include handlebar geometry and also roll to have even a smidge of comparability between setups.
We’re all confused by mention of short stems, zero stems, and reverse stems. These should be treated as very different components, not just “short stems.” There are great reasons to run these stems but there are also drawbacks, just like there are drawbacks to longer stems.
Regarding chainstay length, there are great reasons to run longer chainstays, and a big one is to balance out rider position. A lot of folks enjoy bikes that put them in an upright position with a shorter stem (for quicker steering) and taller stack (for more leverage.) there are other benefits to this position on the bike, but a major drawback is that when we ride more upright, with less weight falling naturally on the front, we lose front end grip. Long chainstays are the way to balance the design considerations on the front of the bike, not the other way around.
If you are a skeptic of the long cs discussion just think of it that way, coming from a ride position/ride style standpoint first, with geo and setup following suit.
I think that the deeper you dive into this stuff, and the more opportunities you have to meet the people designing these mtb things, the more sympathy you develop and the more understanding you have over the flaws in the products. You lose the “everything sucks, the brands are selfish assholes who never give me the stuff I want for the price I deserve to pay” and gain a perspective like “damn it takes a lot of work to make bikes that ride this sick, and there is a ton of money that goes into this damn sport to fuel that work and innovation, so of course it will cost me to reap the benefits.”
On the flip side, working in a grocery store in a HCOL area and not getting free or even discounted product anymore, I have a very different view of pricing in the bike industry than when I was working in the industry. I can see why so many people are pissed at how expensive bikes are, or why someone might get butthurt if their $2k inverted fork isn’t perfect out of the box. I can also see that I might have been a little out of touch when I was in the industry. But here’s where I have come to:
Nothing is perfect, even the bikes you can’t afford. And if you can’t afford a particular imperfect product, buy the imperfect product you can afford to tweak. Commenters on all the sites are pissed that bikes cost $15k, as if the $5k bikes we are riding aren’t better than the $15k bike from ten years ago. Fox mass produces forks that enable us to have sick times on our bikes. Of course there are machinists who can improve those forks, or boutique brands that can build better forks, but those are completely different issues and again, there will be drawbacks to those avenues as well.
My opinion is that several people, including racers have tried it, and it led to crashes. I don't know the engineering or numbers behind it, and I don't need to, riders seem to crash more on shorter stems, I personally feel more comfortable on a 42.5mm stem than a 35mm stem. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
FWIW, front wheel loading and more upright positions or higher bars, I'm pretty sure there can be situations where higher bars will enable a rider to generate MORE front end grip (loading) than lower bars.
I've mentioned the skiing analogy - if you can't load the fronts of the skis, where do you need to raise the boot - at the rear or at the back? Common logic would say at the rear, to rotate you forwards. But in actuality it's the other way around. Raising the toes requires the skier to lean forwards to be balanced, loading up the fronts. Proof of this is standing on a 2x4 piece of wood with either toes or heels - standing on it with your heels will make you lean back, standing on it with your toes will cause you to lean forward.
Based on this analogy bars that are too low or too far forward will make the rider too outstreched with not enough support under the hands and cause the rider to pull back even further. Having the bars closer/higher will enable a more attacking position on a given bike.
Absolutely, if your bars are too low, you don't have confidence to load them and you will lean back...what I think people tend to miss is that the whole bike needs to work as a system, it you only just fit the bike with 50mm stem, slapping 15mm stem on it will make your rider space too short and it would be quite exhausting ( imagine doing pushup with hands at the level of a belly button) not easy right? If you have bike with long reach, you have more room to play with.
Not all short stems are like the raised reverse stem, that thing clearly works for him but I've yet to see anyone use it and think it worked out for them.
The short stem like what Rulezman provided and in the photo from Hope is a bit different, it retains the super short stem but doesn't pull the bars back as far and neither have the absurd height. If you read Rulezman's approach, whether you agree with him or not, it seems the theory based on the bike's geometry accommodating it. If you just go and throw one on your bike, yea you might have issues, he seems to focus on it being more ideal for longer reach and esp longer chainstay bikes, encouraging users of the stem to size up at times when using it. It is meant to be part of an overall geometry solution not so much a drop on your bike and win, I think this is where people may have had issues.
I actually have one but I've yet to use it for varying reasons, mainly that I went through a period where riding fell off and I haven't had a bike that I thought it would work well on yet.
Brian Cahal also did a followup video where he tried the RR stem reversed (i.e. +15mm rather than -15mm), and said it felt better that way. I can't remember exactly but pretty sure he still washed the front once with it like that.
I'm personally of the school of thought where I select stem length based on how it feels for steering speed as opposed to cockpit fit, then adjust bar and stack height to match across my bikes. But then again, I also ride 3 bikes with very similar modern but not crazy reach and CS lengths. I feel like some of these goofy stem setups come from making the bike geometry really excessively long in pursuit of stability, then losing handling and trying to back into that with the goofy stem.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/modern-geo-talk-chainstays-stack-re…
Super short stems have the potential if the entire geometry of the bike was built around them.
They seem unlikely to work well as an add on to existing geometry that was designed around a normal stem length.
Is it 2014 again?
https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/bike_news/mondrakers-forward-geometry-explai…
We have always been in 2014.
Everything is cyclical.
i mean youre not wrong but a skier still needs to push into the front of their boot. also not mentioned in the analogy is that lengthening the tails will lessen the forward weight bias needed to turn the ski.
if i have to weight the front end i want lower and longer for more stability. but if i want a short reach high stack for body position, i want longer CSs so that i dont have to lean precariously over the front to get that grip.
a lot of bike stuff (0 stem...) is trying to fix weight distribution and body position Part & Parcel, rather than approaching the whole system. i like that we're talking about mondraker because, as stated a few posts ago, they were really close to figuring this out over a decade ago, but they were missing the long CS piece. goes to show how precariously all of these pieces are balanced!
Harriet Harnden won Pietra Ligure on the Rulezman stem. Your argument is invalid.
On a bike that is long AF front and rear, to be noted
Yeah and she won last year on a trek, sooo maybe it’s more that she rips on a bike?
She has also won XC races and cyclocross races in the past.
I too think she's a ripper on a bike. I could probably give her my 120mm trail bike set up as it is for me right now and she'd podium an EDR.
Just reinforcing what you're saying: She rips regardless of her stem or chainstay length.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOg53i_68N8 They talk about the cockpit 6 minutes in. I was around for the early Mondraker days plus at least a decade. I love how the bikes have evolved and think this might come back with where geo is going. In a bike check she said that Reese gave it to her and it came off his ebike.
Orrrrr maybe she just knows what she's doing and see's value in the stem...
Some serious mental gymnastics going on in here.
She’s on a bike that’s a size or even 2 sizes too big with a short stem to fix it. That’s all. Yall are nuts short CS and short reach and small wheels are where it’s at
what if you are on a bike that’s 2 sizes too small for you with a long stem to fix it?